Intella, the MENA-based leader in Arabic speech intelligence, has raised $12.5 million in an oversubscribed Series A round led by Prosus Ventures, with participation from 500 Global, Wa’ed Ventures, Hala Ventures, Idrisi Ventures, and HearstLab.
The new funding brings the total raised capital to nearly $17M.
Founded in 2021 by CEO Nour Taher and CTO Omar Mansour, Intella has developed speech-to-text and analytics tools tailored to more than 25 Arabic dialects. Its proprietary models have reached 95.73% transcription accuracy, setting a global benchmark and enabling enterprises to deliver localized, human-like customer conversations.
“From day one, our vision has been to bridge the gap between global AI advancements and the Arabic-speaking world,” said Taher. “This investment allows us to accelerate that mission and transform customer conversations from dark data into a strategic asset.”
Expanding the product suite
The company recently launched Ziila, its Arabic-born digital human, debuting with Jumia, Africa’s largest e-commerce platform. Ziila enables features like voice ordering, showcasing the ability to navigate complex dialects in real-world environments.
With this round, Intella will:
Invest in R&D to push the boundaries of dialectal AI, widening its performance lead over global competitors.
Deepen enterprise capabilities by integrating Ziila with its intellaCX analytics product, offering a full-stack conversational AI suite.
Accelerate MENA expansion, scaling go-to-market teams in Egypt and Saudi Arabia to serve growing demand across finance, telecom, and government.
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Capturing a massive market
Arabic, the fifth most spoken language globally, is fragmented across 25+ dialects, making it a notoriously difficult challenge for AI. Intella’s localized, data-driven approach has positioned it as a category leader.
“Arabic AI models have historically underperformed,” said Robin Voogd, Head of Middle East Investments at Prosus Ventures. “Intella is changing that with a deeply localized platform built for enterprises. We’re excited to back their mission of building AI locally, for the Arabic-speaking world.”
Intella’s enterprise client base is growing rapidly, with revenues doubling in 2024 and projected to grow 7x in 2025. With fresh capital and a sharpened focus on Arabic-first AI, the company aims to become the foundational intelligence layer for voice and text applications across MENA.
